Why Pioneer Energy Services (PES) Stock Is Higher Today

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Pioneer Energy Services Corp. (PES) are higher 4.02% to $13.97 on Tuesday after the company reported per-share earnings and revenue for the 2014 first quarter beat analyst expectations.

The company, which provides drilling and production services to independent oil and gas exploration companies, reported net income was $2.6 million, or 4 cents per share, compared to the $1.3 million, or 2 cents per share reported during the same quarter of the previous year.

First quarter 2014 revenue was up 4% to $239 million, versus the $299.7 million from the first quarter 2013, which exceeded the Capital IQ consensus by around $3.39 million, NASDAQ.com reported.

TheStreet Ratings team rates PIONEER ENERGY SERVICES CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate PIONEER ENERGY SERVICES CORP (PES) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, revenue growth and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and poor profit margins."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 9.2%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 4.5%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share.

Compared to its closing price of one year ago, PES's share price has jumped by 80.60%, exceeding the performance of the broader market during that same time frame. Regarding the stock's future course, our hold rating indicates that we do not recommend additional investment in this stock despite its gains in the past year.

PES's debt-to-equity ratio of 0.97 is somewhat low overall, but it is high when compared to the industry average, implying that the management of the debt levels should be evaluated further. Despite the fact that PES's debt-to-equity ratio is mixed in its results, the company's quick ratio of 1.69 is high and demonstrates strong liquidity.

The gross profit margin for PIONEER ENERGY SERVICES CORP is currently lower than what is desirable, coming in at 33.60%. It has decreased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of -1.05% is significantly below that of the industry average.

Net operating cash flow has declined marginally to $64.51 million or 7.92% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing to the industry average, the firm's growth rate is much lower.